Strange Days and Even Stranger Moments
by Kaesteranya
Summary: Drabbles and snippets for the various characters in the cast. The majority of these, though, will be Yuuko-centric, or full of Doumeki x Watanuki fun.
1. To Aurora

**To Aurora, not to hurry**

He said he liked to watch her smoke. The pipe became her; the smoke became her. In her slow exhale was the taste of her lips.

Clow had always been the gentleman but Yuuko was not a gentle lady. Nevertheless, from that day forward she always smoked her hemp from a pipe, and did so slowly, imagining how he'd smile.


	2. You've given me the answer

**You've given me the answer.**

_The title of this piece is taken from the 31 Days theme for September 13, 2007._

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Doumeki used to see that shop – the witch's shop – in his childhood, on the few times he had taken a detour purely out of youthful boredom and wanderlust. His grandfather had been alive then, and his words of warning had prevented him from entering the place when he was buy a boy and still too young to really understand the price of wanting something with all one's heart.

The shop flickered in and out of his vision as the years went by, then disappeared completely after he entered high school and had decided, with certainty, that he would maintain the shrine in his grandfather's place. He took price in the fact that he could no longer see it at first: he felt that it was a sign of his resolve.

When he first met Watanuki, Doumeki glimpsed the shop just once, and so briefly that he could almost pretend that he had imagined it. Whenever Watanuki had needed him the most, however, the shop would not open itself to him – Doumeki nearly cursed the path he had chosen on those days, and had almost regretted the decisions he had made.

Doumeki kept all of this a secret, locking it away where even the spirits that haunted dreams could not reach. He would only speak of it much later, long after the day the shop changed hands, and only to its new owner, the young man nestled in his arms.


	3. The woes of my heart

**The woes of my heart having glimpsed you.**

_The title for this fic is taken from the 31 Days theme for August 28, 2007._

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He is holding something precious, Doumeki tells himself, after they've pulled away from their kiss and he has Watanuki's face in his hands, stroking those cheeks with his thumbs. The other boy is blushing, brows furrowed and lips turned down in a not-quite-pout and more-close-to-pensive-than-pissed look that Doumeki has always found just a little too attractive for his own good. He cannot, however, take his mind away from thoughts about how thin Watanuki is, how one of his eyes isn't really his eye, how he's taken one too many hits from life but refuses to go down, no matter what the cost.

He could lose him, Doumeki catches himself thinking, as they fall together unto his futon, as they attempt to fumble their way through the motions and arrange all their limbs in all the right places without losing an inch of closeness between them. Watanuki holds on to his silence because it's the only thing he can really control, since Doumeki's hands are all over him and occupying themselves with taking everything else. He only makes a sound three times throughout the whole thing: once, when he jerks at Doumeki's hand wrapping itself about his sex, another when Doumeki asks him if it's really all right to put it in, and the last when their skin's practically melded together, with Doumeki inside of him and his head full of nothing but noise.

He is irreplaceable, Doumeki finally decides, in the light of the pale morning after, as he lies on his side with Watanuki curled up against his body, sleeping and looking, for once, like somebody his age ought to look while he's sleeping. Doumeki brushes the bangs from the other boy's face, and spends the rest of the hour listening to Watanuki breathe.


	4. I like your silence

**I like your silence; the more it shows off your wonder.**

_The title of this fic is taken from the 31 Days theme for January 25, 2008._

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"Do _not_ stand so close to me."

"I don't have a choice."

"You do. You can always opt to _let me walk on my own_."

"You're going to get sick. Who's going to make me bento if you get sick?"

"IT'S ALWAYS ABOUT YOUR STOMACH, ISN'T IT?"

"…Loud."

"DOUMEKIIIII STOP BEING AN INSUFFERABLE IDIOT—"

"And now, you're flailing."

Watanuki only flailed around a little more and let out a string of garbled words that, if taken down with a digital word processor, would have been tantamount to something like someone randomly keyboard smashing. Doumeki did his usual in response – that was, to say, he simply lifted one finger up to near his head and started cleaning out his ear, or maybe pushing the wax in a little deeper so that he could dampen out at least a little bit of all the noise Watanuki was making. That, predictably, led to Watanuki flailing and verbally keyboard smashing a little more…

…At least until Doumeki simply took matters into his own hands and reached out an arm, took Watanuki by the waist and shoved him a little more underneath the shade of his umbrella, and, by extension, closer to his person. Doumeki was rewarded for his efforts with the sight of Watanuki blushing several attractive shades of red and completely shutting up. It was unfortunate that he decided to spoil it with a smirk and another Doumeki-ish comment.

"You really _are_ a lot better when you're quiet."

Watanuki proceeded to throttle Doumeki all the way to Yuuko's shop. He was successful, in varying degrees.


	5. How fire took water to wife

**How fire took water to wife****.**

_This piece contains spoilers for the tie ups and later chapters of TrC and XXXHOLiC. You summarized it for me, Tet bb. I might as well make something out of your headache, right? XD_

_The title is taken from Theme #16 over at the 52 Flavors community._

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Even with the full knowledge of the extent of his powers and even with all of the things in his possession, he had been surprised the moment he realized that out of his grief – out of all of that loneliness – his unbridled Wish had returned his lover from the Fold, stopped her time and locked her in an endless cycle who turned in a place outside of his influence. His love – his selfishness – had generated waves for hundreds of lives, ones strong enough to wash up the dregs and drag all of the good things under. And he could not even have the grace of seeing her face one last time.

As he reaches in to snap the threads of fate and restring them according to the world he wishes live in, Clow remembers Yuuko and wonders, briefly, if there is anything – anything in the universe – that could make her realize that all he did was out of love for the impossible and if she could bring herself to forgive him. As she languishes in her bed and takes a slow drag from her pipe, Yuuko recalls the fine angles of Clow's face and tastes the depth and breadth of his sorrow in the bitter tang of fine cloves and strong opium.


	6. Give me your black sky

**Give me your black sky.**

_This piece contains spoilers for the resolutions presented in the Tsubasa timeline. The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for August 27, 2009._

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They fuck for the very first time in the master's bedroom of the Shop, cloistered away from the city, hidden by curtains of scented silk and damask. Doumeki presses Watanuki down unto the bed, grasps his wrists and slides them over sheets and pillows that are still stamped with butterflies – her symbol, the crest of the former master of the place. He kisses that mouth, and does not wonder why he can already taste the bitter tang of opium even if the other's yet to pick up the pipe.

It's evening late in August: the height of summer, and the worst possible time to be tangled together with the one you love, your body slick with his sweat and working up a fever between the two of you. There's a chill, though, in the many rooms and corridors of the Shop, something that runs deeper and colder than frozen rivers or winter winds. There's a ghost, an echo of an old memory, regal and sinister – a law all unto herself.

Doumeki knows that in some way, Watanuki is allowing him to do this because he wants to retreat somehow. He's lost already, was lost the moment he was "born", and this is his way of keeping his head above the water. This is the only way he can hide without really hiding at all.

They come back to themselves in stuttering breaths, panting lips and shaking muscles. Doumeki gives himself one moment to hold himself inside of the other and revel in the warmth before pulling out; Watanuki's arms remain wound about Doumeki's neck, and do not loosen, even after they've broken away just enough to put a little distance between them. They don't speak. They'll hold each other close until morning.


	7. A playfully dangerous stranger

**A playfully dangerous stranger****.**

_This is set some years after the end of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle, and after the manga of XXXHOLiC, with details from Chapters 180-187 taken into consideration._

_The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for May 16, 2009._

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There's one of them every month, at least, and regardless of whether they are male or female, young or old, each one of them has the same _look_, that same hunger that, if left unsatisfied, will swallow whatever it comes in contact with.

This current one's female, a young thing from their sister school. Stammers when she talks, shifts her weight from foot to foot an awful lot, blushes whenever she looks up and into his eyes. Her own eyes, though, are empty.

Doumeki turns away.

"Come inside."

He hears Maru and Moro long before he ever sets foot in the kitchen, catches, as he turns around the corner, the pitter-patter of their feet on the tiled floor and their sing-song voices ringing off the names of the ingredients and steps behind making rice balls. Another sound joins in as soon as he opens the door: the sharp, rhythmic dicing of a knife through stalks of celery.

"You're up early," the one with the knife says, without turning around. Doumeki folds his arms across his chest, crosses one foot over the other, leans against the doorframe. Maru and Moro bounce over to him, chanting his name, tugging at his sleeve.

"There's another one."

"Of course there is."

The next chop leaves the knife embedded in the board. The master of the house turns to wash his hands. Doumeki catches a glimpse of pale, slender wrists as the latter shifts his sleeves. That distracts him a little, because when he blinks he's looking into a pair of mismatched eyes right after another pair of lips touches his own and that's not supposed to happen.

"Good morning, by the way."

He's alone in the kitchen before he knows it, and he turns around just in time to see Maru and Moro bouncing off, and the ends of a chongsam disappear around the corner. Doumeki moves inside to fetch the tea set. There's a ghost in the corridors he walks through sometime later, after he's changed into something a little more suitable and gathered everything he needs – he can feel the weight of her absence pressing down on her shoulders, fancies the gentle bite of her nails on his shoulders.

He knows that he's imagining it, of course. It's been years since anything vaguely supernatural has dared to get close to him.

Doumeki steps out to the patio, follows the path over to the area overlooking the garden; there are voices just beyond the _shoji_ doors behind him. The girl he let into the shop, and the master. He lays his tools out – bowls, cups, grater, mixer, all the other tiny little and delicate things – and starts his work, to the lilt and turn of their conversation. There are cherry blossom petals in the second cup of tea he's made by the time the door opens, and the master steps out, cloaked in black and the scent of opium.

"It's too hot today. Buy some sake later, will you?"

"You drank a lot last night."

"And I can drink more. It's not like there's much else to do, between customers. Unless, of course, you had something in mind?"

Watanuki, he's smirking as he turns to Doumeki, lifts the tea cup to his lips. Only, this one's not quite Watanuki anymore, is he? This one, with the pipe and the kimono and the glinting eyes and paper-thin smile.

"Well? _Do_ you have something in mind?"

As he's taking the cup/pressing Watanuki's body up against the wooden beam/kissing Watanuki's mouth, Doumeki realizes that these days, he can hardly blame the customers he takes into the shop for the split second of fear that they feel, when they first turn their eyes up and look upon their best dream come true/worst nightmare they'll ever have. He lives that moment at least once every day, in the small things they do together or the nights they spend, sharing one bed.

Sometimes, he wonders why he keeps coming back.


End file.
